• Posted 12/19/2024.
    =====================

    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Classifieds control panel

WebSlave

WebSlave

Maybe seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
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Some of you may remember this feature a while back that allowed you to more easily manage your classified ads on this site. When I went to the photo based classifieds, I disabled the control panel as I felt it would no longer be needed. If you will recall, this also allowed you to highlight and bump your ads for $1 a hit.

When I decided to run both classifieds concurrently, I was curious to see if one method of advertising here would gradually replace the other just based on usage. Which did not happen. Both seem to be equally popular, it seems.

So with that in mind, I decided to resurrect the classifieds control panel anyway, as I felt it was very useful to people using the forum based classifieds section.

As for the highlighting and bumping, that actually was a bit of a headache and not really worth while, PayPal's cut out of each $1 was substantial, and I felt that I was doing this more for PayPal's sake than anything else.

So, with the NEW classified control panel, it has the thread topic line highlighting and bumping functions built in as benefits of the paid memberships on a graduated scale:

  • Participant - 3 per month
  • Contributor - 10 per month
  • Benefactor - 50 per month
  • Endowment - 200 per month

Now I know someone is going to ask me if this is per calendar month, or does the month start when you initiate the first bump/highlight. Right now, I just don't know. :shrug01:

First off, here's how you get to the Classifieds Control Panel via one of two methods:

(1) Go into your User CP menu by clicking on the link that says User CP in the green menu bar at the top of any page. You will then see this display:

class_cp001.jpg


Note the arrow pointing to the link you want to click on in order to go to the classifieds CP menu itself.

(2) Or as an alternative, you can use the Quick Links menu, which is also found in the green menu bar above. When the menu is displayed, simply click on the link for Classifieds CPanel:

class_cp002.jpg


So, now you are in the Classifieds Control Panel display. Bear in mind that you will only see worthwhile info if you already have classified ads existing in the forum based classifieds section. This does NOT interface with the photo based classified section at all.

But if you have forum based classifieds, you will see something similar to this:

class_cp003.jpg


Now you should be looking at ALL the ads you have placed. And note the arrows pointing to two areas of interest. The arrow in the upper right hand corner points to the option to bump and/or highlight the ad in the display that it refers to. You can also delete the ad (maybe, there may still be some permission problems with this), or you can lock/unlock the ad. Locking will prevent someone from making replies to that ad thread, if you desire to have it that way.

The arrow at the bottom left of the screen points to a convenient method you can use to create a NEW classified ad by selecting the area you want this ad to appear.

So suppose you click on the Bump and Highlight link....

class_cp004.jpg


From this screen you can select the color scheme you want for the highlighting of your classified ad. Note the bottom left arrow pointing to the checkbox that will allow you to have ad bumping optional, if you desire NOT to have it bumped. If you DON'T want the ad bumped, simply uncheck the checkbox before clicking on the PROCEED button.

Well pretty much, that is it. Just a new toy to play around with on this site, so have fun with it!
 
Awesome!! Thanks Rich!
 
This is most excellent Rich. I've never been fond of the other classifieds, and I've missed that control panel ever since it was removed, especially the ability to delete ads once the animal has sold.
 
My programmer has just implemented an additional tool in the Classifieds Control Panel. I asked him to put in a display showing the number of bumps currently being applied to ads so a user will have an easy method of determining not only how many bumps have been utilized from the total allowable number, but also able to see at a glance exactly which ads they have been applied to.

This is accessed from the Classifieds Control Panel page via a link above the upper right hand corner of the display of all of your current ads. It says "Your bump/highlight Log". Click on that link to have the bump/highlight log displayed.

The direct link to this display is -> http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/classifieds.php?do=history

This will show you the history of your bump/highlight usage over the last 30 days, which indicates the number of bumps that are currently in use. The display also shows the number of allowable bumps/highlights that you have available as a total.

Hopefully that will help members to more easily figure out their management of this function and how to best utilize the bumping/highlighting feature for their ad campaigns.
 
Under the classifieds control panel, click 'Edit' and you can change the title on the classifieds.

If you are unable to edit, it may be because of the membership level.
 

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